We all have heard by now Trump’s outlandish accusation that Obama ordered Trump Tower wiretapped during the election. There is, however, a grain of truth in these tweets, although Trump is probably unaware of what is true in his claims.

The NSA has been monitoring and recording millions (now billions and billions) of electronic communications, both foreign and domestic, since at least February 2001: in other words, shortly after Bush and Cheney took the White House illegitimately, well before the events of 9/11.

When they were caught red-handed doing this, Bush and Cheney and their surrogates such as AG Alberto Gonzalez (remember him?) said at the time that they were “merely” monitoring the calls where one end at least was a known suspect. By that public criterion, the Russian Ambassador certainly was a suspect.

Obama did not order a specific wiretap on Trump Tower; he did not have to. Democrats’ claims that he must go to a FISA court before the president places a wiretap on American citizens has been passé since the Congress retroactively approved of Bush and Cheney's wiretaps in the Telecom Bill of 2008.

Objective reality has this funny thing about it: it doesn’t go away. Global warming, for example, does not stop because you deny it. The same is true of evolution: it still goes on (e.g., the flu) whether you are recognize it or not. Competence is based on taking objective reality into account. You cannot be competent if you consistently base yourself on lies. You can fool some people all of the time but not all the people all of the time. The clash between Trump and the truth is only in its early stages. Who do you think is going to win out in the end, Trump or objective reality?

Russia is the primary proximate reality that the Trump team keeps lying about and changing their stories about. There are a host of other issues that they aren't based in objective reality either, but the Russian issue is the most obvious.

Despite his efforts in the past and in the future regarding it, he will get crazier and crazier regarding this. It will be fun to see, sort of like the perverse pleasure one might get seeing an accident as it is happening, even though people are being hurt and one feels bad about that part of it. Nonetheless, no one can deserve it more than this gang of scumbags!

Trump enjoyed one day of good feelings generated by his Address to Congress, a speech that he was coached in and largely memorized, to make up for his poor reading of the teleprompter because of his reading difficulties.

Then his new Attorney General Jeff Sessions gets embroiled in scandal, twice lying to Congress about his conversations with the Russian Ambassador to the US. Who unearths these lies? Why if isn’t the “fake news” Washington Post doing its job.

The White House’s energy is increasingly being devoted to damage control. Trump is now upping the ante by demanding a Congressional investigation into his evidence-free claim that Obama tapped Trump Tower phones before leaving office.

Why doesn’t Trump demand a head count of the inauguration photos while they are at it?

Elaine Brower of World Can't Wait speaking at the NYC Stop the War on Iran rally 2/4/12

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This site aims to accomplish two related goals. First, it complements Dennis Loo's book Globalization and the Demolition of Society so that people reading the book can get more deeply into it. (See navigation bar above, labeled "GDS Book Annotations"). We believe that his book is a landmark, providing a solid foundation for politics of a new path. Taking such a path is critical to humanity and the planet's future. As his book's dust jacket states:

[F]ree market fundamentalism - also known as neoliberalism - makes us not more secure or prosperous: it tears the social fabric and undermines security, leading inevitably to disasters on the individual, regional, and global levels.

Neoliberalism is based on the mantra that market forces should run everything. It aims to eliminate job and income security, the social safety net (including welfare and other social guarantees), unions, pensions, public services, and the governmental regulation of corporations. It consequently undermines the basis for people to voluntarily cooperate with authority as almost everyone is increasingly left by themselves to face gargantuan private interests, with governmental and corporate authority ever more indifferent to the public’s welfare.

Those in charge of our collective fates in government and business personify a heartless system based on profit and plunder. They have been relentlessly instituting profoundly immoral and unjust policies even while they insist that they are doing the opposite. We, on the other hand, stand for and are fighting for a radically different system and set of values than this.

Second, in order to get at the truth and because the ways in which humanity's historic striving for understanding and its capacity to wonder and imagine are very rich and diverse, we seek to reflect that richness and diversity on our site. See "About Us" on navigation bar. We intend to be engaging and compelling, as the best investigative journalism and art are, and relentlessly scientific, rigorous, and direct, as those who cherish the truth are. We believe that we can be both accessible and sophisticated. As Loo lays out in his book,

Defeating the empire is not something that occurs only on the literal battlefield. It is also something that is determined throughout the continuum of battles over many issues, including: ideas; philosophy; forms of organization and leadership in economy, politics, and other realms; ways of arguing; ways of responding to and respecting empirical data; interest in truth as opposed to expedience; how people and the environment should be treated; the nature of relations among people (e.g., between women and men, different races and ethnicities, rich and poor countries, etc.); ways of responding to criticism and ideas that are not your own; ways of handling one’s own errors and those of others; and more, all the way up through how warfare is carried out. The contrast between the methods and goals of the neoliberals and those of us who seek an entirely different world is stark. (Globalization and the Demolition of Society, Pp. 326-7)

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